5 Habits That Keep Your Bathroom Cleaner Longer

I hate cleaning the bathroom. It's a chore; I don't like being on my knees on the hard tile floor scrubbing soap scum off the bathtub or brushing my toilet. (In fact, I don't like cleaning anywhere much at all.) And I'm sure not a lot of my readers like doing it, either.

But there are some things that you can do to avoid dirtying your bathroom too much, so that you need to clean it less often. I actually have adopted some of these habits, and they have helped me quite a bit!

Brush your teeth face down

Well, I've always done it this way, but I see a lot of people who brush their teeth facing the mirror. You know what that does, though? It sends lots of little toothpaste bubbles on the mirror and everywhere on the countertop.

I've noticed that if I bow my head and keep it close to the sink, most of these bubbles end up in the sink and rinsed away. Silly? Maybe. But I find it saves me a lot of mirror-cleaning.

Wipe your shower walls every time

What's more time-consuming? Scrubbing your shower walls for hours every few months, or taking an extra minute to wipe away the moisture after each shower? I sure prefer the second option.

Not only does this extra habit keep mold at bay, but your shower/bath walls will look extra clean for longer periods of time, and scrubbing will be much easier and less time-consuming. Think of all the soap scum and body oils that don't get to dry on your wall because you wiped it away!

Flush every time

Well, I'm actually a bit conflicted about this one. On the one hand, flushing every time avoids dirty (and smelly) buildup in your toilet. On the other hand, it wastes a lot of water.

If you care about a sparkling clean toilet bowl every day, I suggest you flush with every use. It'll sure help keep it clean.

You can also use those "clean as you flush" products like Scrubbing Bubbles so you don't have to actually scrub very often.

Personally, I don't mind a little grime if it saves water, especially if you just keep the lid closed the rest of the time. But that's a personal choice, so you make your own!

Wipe your counters after putting on makeup

Makeup can be an annoying source of dirty grime on bathroom counters. Have you ever tried to scrub out set makeup stains from counters and corking? It takes a lot of work.

So instead of leaving that foundation powder or the bits of eyeshadow that fall off your brush and on the counter, you can just take a second to wet a bit of toilet paper or paper towel, and clear it right off. It'll keep your counter cleaner and much, much easier to clean once you have to scrub it.

Keep the floor dry

"It's just water" would be my usual argument against wiping up post-shower water on the bathroom floor. But water gets into the grout and stains tiles over time, especially if you're still dripping a bit of soap.

So, you can either wipe off in the tub (including your legs and feet!) or stay on the mat until your feet are dry.

This also reduces the risk of slips and falls because of a slippery wet tile floor.